


Ten and Two

by fantastic_fanatics



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Heavy Angst, Hunger Games AU, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Sad Ending, various other characters - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-28
Updated: 2015-08-27
Packaged: 2018-04-17 14:43:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4670570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fantastic_fanatics/pseuds/fantastic_fanatics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The universe seems to have forgotten that the odds have always been in Dean Winchester's favor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ten and Two

It starts off as a good day. The sun shines against the blue and cloudless backdrop of sky, its warmth blanketing District Two, and the little green-eyed boy sitting in a patch of grass outside his home listens to the birds chirping merrily as he plays with his baby brother. Their mother, a beautiful young woman called Mary, watches them from the kitchen window while she makes a snack for the older child, smiling and humming happily. The other Winchester is out working in the granite mine today, and won’t be home for several hours.  
As the day drags on, the temperature skyrockets. Mary calls her boys inside to eat and doesn’t allow them to continue playing outside; the older boy pouts at this, but the baby gives a content giggle and he immediately perks up. They play in the open space between the kitchen and the dining room while Mary begins dinner. Heat slowly leeches into the large house that stands in Victor’s Village, and it is dark outside when the baby boy begins to cry in discomfort.  
“Mommy?” asks the four-year-old in a panicked voice. “Why is Sammy crying?”  
Mary smiles as she puts a cherry pie in the oven, then turns to her children. She takes the crying infant out of her other son’s arms, laughing lightly at his confused frown. “Because it’s hot, silly,” she tells him, ruffling his hair affectionately. The boy then feels the flush of his cheeks and his sweat-matted hair, absently wondering when it had gotten so hot.  
“Oh,” he nods as he begins to understand. The front door creaks open and a thick wave of muggy heat fills the house.  
And then the boy’s eyes begin to water and he starts to cough. He blinks, and suddenly there’s smoke filling the house. His green eyes dart around frantically, searching for his parents and his brother. Where did they go? He looks down at himself to find he’s no longer in his play-clothes, but is wearing blue cotton pajamas instead. A voice shouts in terror, and the boy recognizes the voice as his father’s. His little feet scamper down the hall to Sammy’s nursery, where he thinks the cry came from, pinching his chubby fingers down on his burning nose.  
His eyes widen at the red, yellow, and orange monster that is eating his house, getting bigger and bigger as it consumes. John, his father, falls out of the room, a crying Sammy in his arms. “Daddy?” The boy’s voice is scared and confused. John looks down at him wide-eyed, placing the baby into the green-eyed boy’s arms.  
“Take your brother outside as fast you can! Don’t look back! Now, Dean, go!”  
The family and the burning house disappear as Dean Winchester’s eyes flash open. His heart thuds rapidly behind his ribcage, his breathing bordering on hyperventilation, and it takes him a moment to convince himself that the heat creeping across his skin is only a memory. He recovers quickly enough; his subconscious has frequented the dream for the past thirteen years, and though it doesn’t lose effect on him, he’s learned to gather himself in a matter of seconds.  
His fingers run themselves through his short blond hair. He breathes deeply through his nose, replacing the ghosts of smoke with the strong scents of whiskey and old leather. The heat doesn’t subside, and when he looks to his chest, he half expects to see flickering hues of yellows and reds against his pajama shirt. To his relief, the fiery monster that has plagued him since he was four is nowhere in sight, and the nearly-uncomfortable warmth against him is his trembling kid brother.  
“Sammy,” Dean whispers, gently shaking the boy. “Sam, wake up.”  
His brother winces, still half-asleep, and Dean notices the tears streaking down his face. Dean frowns, searching Sam’s arms and face for bruises or cuts or scratches. He passed out early the previous night, long before John got home. Had he slept through a beating? Images of a bleeding, teary-eyed Sam flash through his mind, followed by the echoes of sputtered insults and drunken laughter. Dean clenches his jaw as he swallows his disgust, shoving the red-splattered memories away. No, he would’ve woken up if something was going on. He’s a light sleeper.  
The rusty gears in Dean’s head finally click. His eyelids drop down over his eyes and he shakes his head at himself. Christ, he’s stupid. Of course Sam is having nightmares. It’s today, goddammit.  
“Hey,” Dean says, louder. He bites down on his tongue when John stirs across the room. His father is tossing and turning in a pile of dirty clothes at the foot of his leather chair, murmuring obscenities, and will probably wake with a throbbing headache. Dean tells himself it doesn’t matter—John wouldn’t dare lose his temper on them today. At least, that’s what he hopes as he continues to shake his brother awake, carefully brushing away the tears on Sam’s cheeks with his thumb. “Sammy. They’re not going to pick you.”  
His brother sniffles, slipping back into consciousness, giving a shake of his head. “You don’t know that, Dean,” he mutters groggily. Dean watches him rub the sleep and tears out of his eyes and sit up.  
“The odds are totally in your favor, dude. There’s no way they’ll pick you.” Dean reasons in a confident tone.  
“Right,” Sam mumbles, his voice bitter. “Just like Charlie?”  
Dean’s jaw clenches. Anger and hurt swell inside him like a balloon, and he’d be damn near popping if he wasn’t already in big-brother mode. “Sammy, what happened to—to her—that was a freak accident. It was a freak accident, the eighteens that year decided they didn’t want the Games. Besides, you were fucking seven, you don’t remember it the way it happened. Trust me. They aren’t gonna pick you.”  
Sam scowls, but Dean sees the fear behind it. “I promise you, Sam. I won’t let them lay a goddamn finger on you.”  
His brother’s glare breaks and he opens his mouth to say something, but Dean really doesn’t think he wants to hear it. He cuts him off with a wave of his hand. “Go get dressed. I’ll take care of Dad.”  
Sammy shoots him a look and tries to protest. “Dean, I—“  
“Nope. Don’t want to hear it. Get your ass dressed.”  
Sam caves and stands up, mumbling petty obscenities as he leaves the room. Dean rubs his eyes before hauling himself out of his warm bed. “Dad,” he calls as he walks across the room and tentatively shakes his father’s shoulder. “Dad. Get up. We have to get ready for the Reaping.”  
***  
Dean isn’t paying attention when the District Two escort—a pale woman with loose blond curls and creamy white eyes that match her red-splattered dress, Lilith Something—appears on the steps of the Justice Building and begins speaking. He isn’t paying attention when the video flashes across the two screens that flank the building’s stage like entrance and he isn’t listening to the artificially somber narration by the president. Instead, he’s doing everything he can to not punch the excited grins off of everyone’s faces.  
It’s sick and disgusting and sad, because nobody there understands.  
He sighs as he stares at the tightly packed teenagers surrounding him. The small handful of kids that don’t look excited are wearing mixtures of fear and grief on their faces, probably a result of losing friends and sibling to the Games. Dean grimaces at the relatable thought as he battles a sudden wave of bloodcurdling memories full of blood and red hair, pushing the echoes of agonized screams to the back of his mind. It takes him a moment, but he wins the skirmish against himself and decides that yes, now is a very good time to start listening to the yearly distribution of death sentences.  
“…shall we begin with the ladies, then?” Lilith’s unnaturally sweet voice fits her unnaturally child-like face, and Dean can’t help but shudder; the woman is scary, even by Capitol standards. The citizens of District Two cheer as she bounces over to the glass bowl full of names, drawing every action out, from the way she drops her hand into the bowl and selects a slip of paper to the way she grins as if she’s the bearer of excellent news. Giggling, she announces in a shrill sing-song voice, “The female tribute for the Sixty-Seventh Annual Hunger Games—Megan Masters!”  
Dean recognizes the girl’s name immediately, and he isn’t displeased; Meg is a colossal bitch who only cares about herself and self-administered morphine. It’s her and her little gang of drugged-up-jackasses—the Demons, they called themselves—that’re responsible for what happened to Adam and Kevin. She deserves whatever hell she gets in the arena, Dean thinks, and he can’t find it in himself to feel guilty about it.  
He looks up to the screens projecting Meg’s shocked face. She’s fairly pretty today, more-so than usual, prepared to look her best for the Capitol. Her dark wavy hair is neatly swept to the left side of her head and falls over her shoulder, and there’s just a hint of cosmetics on her purplish eyelids and pink lips that make her dark eyes pop. She wears a black leather jacket on top of a tight dress that matches the shade of her eyelids.  
Dean watches as Meg takes a moment to process what’s going on. It clicks quickly enough, and suddenly her pretty face is even prettier as she flashes a blinding smile. She weaves her way out of her place in the crowd of teenage girls, radiating confidence and something reminiscent of amusement, making Dean wonder how many unnecessary tesserae she applied for. Bitch’s name probably makes up a quarter of the whole bowl, he muses.  
Once Meg is on stage, Lilith allows a brief pause for volunteers. Meg nearly kills a few people with the glare she sends to the teenage girls. Dean can imagine the Capitol freaks rioting over her already, excitedly making plans to arrange sponsorships. Nobody steps forward to take Meg’s place, so Lilith squeals delightedly and moves onto the male tribute.  
Dean is paying attention now, though he’s not nervous. He’s not worried in the slightest. Not really. The boys of District Two usually volunteered before the reaped tribute could even make it to the stage. Usually. Besides, there’s over a thousand slips of paper in that big glass bowl, and only twenty-seven of them have ‘Dean Winchester’ printed over them. Dean ignores the way that twenty-seven suddenly seems like an awfully large number. Damn tesserae. Dean definitely doesn’t need to remind himself to breathe or anything, because Dean definitely isn’t nervous.  
A deep breath and a sprinkle of sugar is all Dean needs to wholeheartedly swallow down the lie, a completely inaudible voice chuckling in his head as he manages to convince himself that everything will be fine. And Dean really believes this, as he’s believed every other false thing he’s ever fed himself.  
But then Lilith has to open her red-painted mouth and speak with that goddamn voice that makes Dean shiver in every unpleasant way imaginable. She reads the name, and Dean can’t even register the emotions curdling in his stomach over the sound of everything crashing down around him.  
Dean swallows, trying to string his thoughts together, as the entirety of the district explodes with whooping applause. The ovation from the citizens of Two dies down with one sharp glance from Lilith. The male tribute with the familiar soft brown eyes and soft brown hair trembles as he steps onto the steps of the Justice Building, and Lilith sweetly asks if there’re any volunteers. Dean’s entire world ends when the town square is filled with silence, because of course, the name belongs to his baby brother.  
Sam is quaking on the steps of the Justice Building and his eyes are shining and he’s obviously trying so fucking hard to hold himself together and Dean is just trying to understand what’s happening and his chest is aching and his lungs are screeching because apparently he isn’t fucking breathing and he doesn’t know what to do, what is he supposed to do, how does he fix this because he needs to fix this, Sam can’t die in there, he can’t go into the arena, he can’t fucking die, and what the hell does Dean do and what the fuck does the universe have against him—  
Somebody finally lets out a breathless “I volunteer as tribute”, and Dean actually begins to relax. Then he realizes that ‘Somebody’ is him.  
He’s not even vaguely aware of what comes after this. Everything drowned out by the loud appraisal of the audience and the silent sobs of his little brother and something else he can’t bother to put his finger on. It’s like he blinks and he’s suddenly standing where Sammy stood beside Meg and Lilith, breathing in the venomous air of the Capitol and the terrifying escort. He thinks they make him introduce himself, and he thinks they make a remark about stealing the glory from his brother.  
But he doesn’t listen, or pay attention. All Dean can manage to do is study the town square of his district one last time, because he doesn’t doubt for a second that this is the last time he will ever see it.  
***  
The goodbyes are hard. Dean has lists and sets of proper reactions and monologues tucked away in his brain somewhere, utilizing it whenever it’s convenient. He knows how to handle situations, what he’s supposed to say and how he’s supposed to act. John goes on a drunken rampage through the house? Get Sam out of there and hide all the sharp and expensive stuff. Running low on money to buy food and clothes? Go over to Uncle Bobby’s shop and beg for a job. Girl A learns that he’s been fooling around with Girl B or vice-versa? Allow them to slap him and yell at him or whatever else, he deserves it. Some idiot with a death-wish harasses Sammy? Rip their fucking lungs out.  
But there isn’t a protocol for this series of events. He never imagined he would need a set of rules and guidelines and farewell speeches set aside for something like this.  
Dean studies the room the peacekeepers led him to, desperate for distraction. Gray paint melds the walls and floors together seamlessly, and the only set of doors leads out into the guarded hallways within the Justice Building. There are no windows. The only furnishings in the space are the light fixtures built into the ceiling and the soft red velvet sofa that Dean currently sits in. He strains to hear a muffled conversation on the other side of the door, but the incoherent words cease when the ingress flies open and a bawling Sam hurtles towards him, crashing into his arms.  
“Sammy,” Dean breathes, emotions piling up on each other until he can't tell them apart. A sentence to death by means of a televised bloodbath does that type of thing to a person.  
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Dean I'm so sorry, you shouldn't have volunteered, Dean I'm so sorry—“  
“It's not your fault, Sam.”  
Sam is still apologizing profusely for the things he had no control over when John enters the room. His father’s face is blank, his brown eyes deep and dark and empty. The blatant lack of tears hurts more than Dean cares to admit.  
“You get three minutes,” a peacekeeper barks at them before slamming the door shut.  
Dean pulls away from his brother’s embrace, panicking about the time limit. He doesn't know what he’s going to say, but he doubts three minutes will be enough.  
“Sammy, listen to me,” he begins, hoping the words will come. “Don't take any tesserae, okay? It's not worth it. The Singers will help you out for a while, I think. Bobby will give you a job or something and Ellen will cook something up on a regular basis. Stay away from the bad stuff, alright? I don't want you getting involved with the Demons… Don't make the same mistake Adam and Kevin made. You're smarter than that. You're the smartest kid I know. You'll be okay, Sammy. I promise.”  
Dean looks into the twelve-year-old’s watery eyes, trying to convey all of the other things that words can't. His little brother shakes his head, more tears streaming down his tan cheeks. “Stop that, Dean. You can win. Stop talking like I'm never going to see you again, because you can win, Dean. I know you can.”  
A sad smile spreads itself across the older brother’s face. His eyes are prickling and it feels like there’s a rock lodged in his esophagus. Sam is so exuberant amount of hope hurts. It hurts enough that Dean is damn near promising he’ll do everything in his power to come home.  
“Don't hold your breath, kiddo,” he says instead, because false-hope is one of the crueler tortures in life that he’s experienced far too much of. It’s not like he can lie to his brother anyway. Sam lets out a shuddering sob at this, falling back into Dean’s arms. Dean holds his brother close, blinking away tears of his own when he addresses their father.  
“You have to pull your act together. Sam needs you more than you need liquor, understand? I can't take care of him anymore, and I can't keep an eye on you either. You take care of my brother, or so help me god, I will haunt your ass.”  
John flinches, finally allowing his eyes to glisten. They pool with guilt and shame and unspoken apologies and something else, something that makes Dean crack. He swallows down a sob, biting down on the inside of his cheek, because he won’t break, not yet. Not in front of Sammy.  
The Winchester father nods and draws his boys into a grief-filled embrace. Dean breathes in the scent of his family—alcohol, leather, and the worn pages of old books—before the door opens and the peacekeepers are essentially dragging Sammy away, leaving Dean standing in the empty room, shouting, “Close your eyes, Sam, close your eyes when it happens, I’m sorry, I am so sorry, please, close your eyes, okay, goodbye Sammy—”  
The door shuts, muting the hysterics. Dean collapses onto the velvet couch, shaking, and drops his head into his hands. He digs his palms into his eyes in an attempt to staunch the flow of tears. A moment passes before a small hand drops gently onto his back, soothing him slightly, and he looks up to find the crying Singer family staring back at him.  
The Singers—Bobby, Ellen, and their eleven-year-old daughter, Jo—are the ones who took it upon themselves to help Sam and Dean out when their father was too busy mingling with those bastards, Jack and Jim. Bobby is more of a father to the Winchester boys than John has ever been, and Ellen’s maternal affection and cooking are on par with the memories Dean has about Mary. Jo is the little sister he never wanted—the second one, anyway. But he doesn’t allow himself to think about Charlie right now, because that would just make everything worse.  
Jo throws herself onto the sofa, propping herself up on her knees to the left of Dean, throwing her spindly arms around his neck and sniffling into his shoulder. He holds her small, trembling form and murmurs things like ‘it’s okay’ and ‘don’t you worry about me, Joanna Beth’, because he’s still in big brother mode and his first instinct is to comfort her. Ellen sits on the other side of the seventeen-year-old as she rubs comforting circles into his back and presses motherly kisses to his temple. Bobby just stands, wearing a sad little smile that makes up for his speechlessness.  
“Thank you so much,” Dean articulates after several seconds pass by, trying not to waste these precious three minutes. “For everything. I don’t—I don’t think Sammy or I could’ve made it this far if—”  
“You’re family, boy,” both Bobby and Ellen interrupt in near unison, only Ellen uses ‘Dean’ instead of ‘boy’. Everything is quiet for a moment, because really, there isn’t much to say.  
“Maybe you can win,” Jo begins after a while. “You’re smart and strong, so maybe you can win…”  
Dean hugs the girl tighter, shooting Ellen and Bobby defeated glances. “Don’t wait up on me, sweetheart.” Jo makes a noise and stiffens her grip on his neck. The lock on the door begins to whir, and Dean feels his last few seconds starting to drain away.  
“Take care of them,” he requests of Bobby. “My dad, Sam—just make sure they’re okay. And don’t look. Please. Don’t let them see it.”  
Bobby nods, but doesn’t speak, and then the peacekeepers are there and the Singers aren’t.  
Nobody else visits, which is entirely unsurprising. Once upon a time, Dean Winchester had a mother and two other brothers and a best friend; now, he only had his brother, his father—occasionally—and the Singers. Once upon a time, Dean Winchester’s additional loved ones were actually alive.  
But now it doesn’t matter, because he’s as dead as they are.

**Author's Note:**

> Woohoo! First chapter of my first Destiel fic is done! I worked really hard on this and I'm *really* excited to continue writing. This bit was an awful lot of exposition and stuff, but I promise it'll get interesting in the next chapter.  
> This is the Hunger Games, though, so don't expect this fic to be very fluffy.  
> I don't have anybody to edit and tbh I kind of suck at it and have little patience for it... let me know if you'd be interested XD


End file.
